Glynn County jury finds man not guilty of killing his mother

Marroquin, 30, was found guilty of fleeing police.

BRUNSWICK — A Glynn County jury Thursday night found Eric Marroquin not guilty of murder in the stabbing death of his mother.

He was also cleared of aggravated assault and criminal attempt to commit murder in the stabbings of his live-in girlfriend and his mother’s boyfriend.

After deliberating three hours, the jury found him guilty of only one charge: fleeing and attempting to elude police — a felony that carries a sentence of up to five years.

Superior Court Judge Anthony Harrison will sentence Marroquin at a later date.

Because he is on probation for robbery and burglary, he is subject to having that probation revoked.

Marroquin had testified in his murder trial earlier in the day that he did not kill his mother, and that he only learned of her death when police told him.

Marroquin, 30, said he had a knife-throwing fight with his mother’s boyfriend, Robert Long, at his mother’s home where he and his girlfriend Melani Houston, who was then pregnant, also lived.

Marroquin was the final defense witness and both sides gave their closing arguments. The jury began deliberating shortly after 6 p.m.

He said police seemed to have their minds already made up that he killed his mother.

“They was really wanting to tell me something and not let me tell them anything,’’ Marroquin said. “That’s what I kept repeating, ‘I was fighting with Robert. I was fighting with Robert.’ ’’

Pool of bloodPolice responding to the house Sept. 16, 2011, found his mother, Vivian Lott, 51, lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen with her throat slashed and knife buried in her back. Houston, who was stabbed in the back, had run across five-lane U.S. 341 for help while Long, who was stabbed in the chest, was in the home’s driveway waving a butcher knife, police said.

Unable to find his own truck keys, Marroquin had left in Long’s truck and later led police on a 15-mile chase at speeds of 100 mph until he crashed in south Brunswick.

Judge Harrison advised Marroquin he had the right to testify, but also the right not to.

Dressed in a suit and tie, the balding, slight Marroquin took his seat in the witness stand and said, “It’s something that needs to be done.”

He choked up a couple of times talking about his mother and said, “We had a good relationship.”

Marroquin said he and Houston, who was pregnant at the time, moved into his mother’s home in a garage converted to a bedroom because she wanted him around when Long was there.

“Scared of him,’’ he said of his mother’s feelings toward Long.

She had him change the locks on the house to keep Long from “snooping around,’’ as she tried to ease out of their relationship.

But she hadn’t done that yet and was with Long at the house that night when he and Houston arrived there about 9 p.m. after he had bought and smoked crack twice that afternoon.

Marroquin testified he was ashamed to be using drugs again, wanted to get into a halfway house to get clean and had applied for admission to Altamaha Tech.

But he also knew his best chance to earn money was working on Long’s shrimp boat, although he and Long clashed when he worked on the boat earlier, Marroquin said.

Marroquin said he went into the living room to ask Long to give him a job, but first he admitted to Long he was again using drugs.

That’s when Long swung on him and Marroquin said he grabbed a steak knife from a knife block to protect himself, partly because Long is so much bigger.

“If you ever see him, it’s like a Rottweiler and a Chihuahua,’’ he said.

He then testified in detail to a fight that covered the house with Long slashing the right palm he had raised to fend off the swinging knife. He told of throwing knives at Long and of pushing Houston away at one point and of his mother’s instructions to “just go.”

That’s what he did, Marroquin said, in Long’s truck although he now wished he had stopped for police.

He also testified that between the time he left the house and the start of the chase he stopped and bought and used cocaine, he said, to numb the pain in his hand.

Houston, who suffered a punctured lung, said initially she believed Marroquin had stabbed her after spinning her around, but she testified that her back was to Marroquin and Long when she was stabbed.

Long testified that Marroquin was the assailant and that he got a piece a driftwood and then the butcher knife to protect himself during Marroquin’s rampage.

Finally....I've been praying that whatever the outcome is, that it is fair and from truth....A weight has been lifted, yet there is still pain and mourning over this family....My heart goes out to you all, especially Eric....